Understanding the Changing Nature of Homelessness and Support Resources
Noah Fay, Director of Housing Programs, DESC (Downtown Emergency Service Center, Seattle)
Homelessness is a large and complex issue which touches all our communities and natural areas, from our urban centers to our forests. There are many factors contributing to the increase of people living without shelter or those who are at-risk of becoming homeless: skyrocketing rents, the reduction of federal funding for subsidized housing, structural inequalities rooted in systemic racial injustice, an inadequate mental health system, and an opioid epidemic. In order to find new approaches through collaboration, we need to understand how homelessness is changing, debunk the old myths and connect with social service resources.
Shaping of Our Natural Landscapes with the Challenges of Homelessness: Compassionate Coexistence
Brice Maryman ASLA, LEED AP Senior Landscape Architect at MIG|SvR
The Great Recession and the economic boom of this past decade have increased the pressures of homelessness on our natural landscapes to crises levels. As our leaders tackle the larger challenges of providing low income housing, human support services, and population growth there are humanitarian strategies to lessen the environmental impact of homelessness through deeper understanding, collaboration, education and thoughtful design. Brice will explore these options of how we can be compassionate to both our natural areas and those living in homelessness on them.
Brice is the 2017 recipient of Homeland Lab, LAF Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership: With compassion, respect and empathy, the HomeLand project intends to present proactive strategies that respect each individual’s “right to housing” and “right to the city,” while also enhancing public spaces that are significantly impacted by our current, haphazard strategies for managing homelessness
Promoting great design of green infrastructure systems and projects throughout the United States and the world. Specialties: historic preservation green infrastructure design + planning stormwater design urban design. Brice is looking to develop proactive, multi‐scalar spatial strategies that government agencies, nonprofits, designers, and politicians can implement in their communities. The project will position landscape architects as uniquely qualified to develop a comprehensive, adaptable landscape management strategy that works for both for those experiencing homelessness and other public space users.
Lesson’s Learned in Developing a Successful Encampment Waste Program
Lou-Anne Daoust-Filiatrault, Senior Planning and Development Specialist, Seattle Public Utilities, Waste Division
Chelsie Porter, Prevention & Outreach Program Manager, Hepatitis Education Project
Learn about Seattle’s successful “Purple Bag” waste program which has drawn attention from cities across the nation and the collaboration with the Hepatitis Education Project. The development of this program came from trying different waste management strategies, those that worked and those that didn’t. Lou-Anne and Chelsie will share the lessons that were and are being learned as their organizations tackle this challenge.
Meeting Your Natural Area Goals of Maximizing Habitat Health and Public Safety Through Design
Christina Pfeiffer, Horticulture Educator & Consultant
One of the greatest challenges is creating and managing natural areas that meet the goals of maximizing healthy native habitat, providing public spaces which offers safe and enriching experiences to visitors while also requiring minimum maintenance. The new GSP Best Management Practices for Natural Landscapes will show you how to attain all these elements in your natural areas through thoughtful design and maintenance planning which promote positive civic usage.
Christina has enjoyed a career working in public gardens, horticulture education and consulting that spans a rich and varied 40 years. She has taught courses in pruning, arboriculture and landscape management at local colleges and is a regular speaker for a variety of public and professional seminar programs. In addition to teaching, she is a consulting associate with Urban Forestry Services, Inc. Earlier in her career, Christina led landscape management efforts for the Holden Arboretum and Washington Park Arboretum, where she worked with both horticultural landscapes and native woodland trails.
She is an ISA Certified Arborist® and holds degrees in horticulture from Michigan State and the University of Washington. She completed an M.S. thesis in 1986 which she describes as the epitome of urban horticulture, "Landscape Maintenance and Design Problems in Urban Parking Lots." Lessons from that study continue to resonate in her work with urban vegetation challenges, particularly for establishing and caring for urban natural areas. Sustainable and efficient landscape techniques that work in sync with nature are the foundation to her work. Her book, Pacific Northwest Gardening Month by Month (Cool Springs Press 2017) offers approaches to plant care for greater results with less effort.
Stewardship Protocols of Land Trusts with Encampments
Stu Watson, Lands Manager, Forterra
Forterra has been on the forefront of addressing homelessness on protected lands in our region. Many land managers are perplexed when they encounter encampments on protected green spaces. After encountering many camps on Forterra's extensive lands, Stu has developed a protocol to aid managers in the decision making process, and navigate how best to approach the complex nature of encampments. Stu will discuss how he has weighed the costs against the risks and explain what works and what hasn't worked so well in practice.
Linking At-Risk Communities with Environmental Job Training
Andrew Schiffer, DIRT Corps
The DIRT Corps training program operates on a year-round quarterly schedule. The curriculum focuses on three main modules: green infrastructure, urban forestry, and ecological restoration; developing skills and fosters career pathways especially for women, people of color, LGBT, veterans, unemployed and under-employed in ever expanding green infrastructure fields such as operations and maintenance, design, construction, and landscaping. The DIRT Corps curriculum combines in-class and field work that also includes mentorship with the course teachers, professional guests, workshops, and site tours.
Leading with Sensitivity and Respect
Morgan McShea, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance
Puget Soundkeeper stewards the health of our local waters which include streams, rivers, lakes and Puget Sound which are being impacted by encampments along bodies of water. Puget Soundkeeper Alliance has incorporated a supportive, compassionate approach to those individuals experiencing homelessness along our waters.Inspiring volunteers to approach the complex issue of homelessness from a compassionate and proactive perspective. Connecting the dots between the health and well-being of people experiencing homelessness and the health and well-being of our waterways, and spurring action through civic engagement